The Japanese Tea Ceremony Experience (English Text)

We have created a new experience valid both for Italians 

visiting Lucca and for foreign tourists.

Its name is The Japanese Tea Ceremony Experience.

You can book the experience directly by email (and pay 20 euros for person cash on arrival or with Paypal online payment) or book through the Airbnb site and pay 25 euros for person at booking by credit card.

Airbnb - The Japanese Tea Ceremony

The experience consists of meeting of about an hour in which a single person or a group of up to five persons comes to the headquarters of the Jaku Tea Ceremony School in Lucca (Piazza Curtatone 147) to immerse themselves in the magical atmosphere of traditional Japan and of the ancient art of Chanoyu. 

You will be welcomed by our Tea Teacher, dressed in the traditional kimono, who will give you a little theoretical introduction on the tea ceremony in Japan (in Italian, or foreign tourists, in English) and will then accomodate you in the tatami room to assist at the tea ceremony (moment of usucha or koicha at the guest' choice). 

You can sample a traditional Japanese dessert and drink a cup of matcha, ritually prepared. At the end of the ceremony, the Tea Teacher will answer all the questions and you can prepare another cup of matcha yourself!

To partecipate you need to book one day in advance. The days on which the ceremony takes place are Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday: you can choose a time between the following start times: 10.30/12.00/16.00/18.00/21.00, and Friday start times: 16.00 - 18.00 - 21.00.

Those who want to book must bring with them a pair of clean white socks to wear and the ladies must take off their jewelry and tie the hair if are long.

The experience is to sit on your knees, whoever has problem can let us know before so the School can arranges for a chair. 

It is an experience not to be missed in order to feel immersed in the atmosphere of traditional Japan in Italy!

American review of our tea ceremony demonstration - Recensione americana della nostra dimostrazione di cerimonia del tè

Siamo internazionali!
La nostra dimostrazione di cerimonia del tè ha fatto il giro del mondo ed è stata recensita persino in America!

We're worldwide!
Our tea ceremony demonstration has been around the world and it has even been reviewed in America!

Orgogliosi con - Proud with:
Hitomi Matsumoto - Naoyoshi Itani - Hiromi Ogawara

Qui la recensione completa in inglese / Here the complete review in English:

Japan´s Glory at the Grand Hotel Principe di Piemonte | Revista Ven América

Japan´s Glory at the Grand Hotel Principe di Piemonte With the Original Tea Ceremony Viareggio (Versilia–Tuscany).– The Grand Hotel Principe di Piemonte, based in…

REVISTAVENAMERICA.COM

Mawaribana -廻り花 (English post)

September is the right month to do Mawaribana: one of the "Seven Lessons".
In this lesson all the students and also the host make a little chabana with the flowers provided by the School and make a composition usually inside a three windows bamboo hanaire.
To give you an idea I took from Internet he below picture so you can see a typical setting.

All the students and the host alternate themselves to make a little floral composition and repeat this for three times changing the first compositions with the latest until the end of the lesson. 

The host come in the room doing sorè with the tray of flowers set up as in the top picture. Then she goes to set it inside tokonoma where it will be set up an empty hanaire but with the water inside. 

The students, starting from the first, will turn to create small chabana, filling each one window of the flower pot and helping themselves with knife to cut the flowers at the right height. Then it will be the turn of the host and again the students up to three cycles. It is normal to different compartments according to the cycle as it's normal the it once the flower pot is full, the students or host must remove flowers to replace their small composition. At the end the host will pour some water inside each window and take away the tray with the flowers not used, waste and the discarded flowers that the students have taken out of the flower pot. 

  

It's important to remember some basic rules:

1) the flowers are first adjusted on the hands and not directly in the flower pot, and this is also true for measuring the right height of the composition. 

2) Care should be taken when cutting the flower's stems with the knife because it is usually very sharp and it is very easy tu cut ourself. 

3) First remove the previous flowers and the pick the new flowers and create composition. In the tallest compartment, if possible, try not to let the flowers out of the topo but only from the "window". Higher flowers usually go to the upper compartment. 

4) It is possible to use the same flowers in different compositions but the variety is preferable.

5) Once you remove an old composition or relay on the trimmings of the stems of the used flowers, you should care to put them next to the other flowers on the tray, try to bring them together as in a "single deck".

6) The tray is carried with two hands holding it on both sides. 

7) When making floral composition you follow the simple rules of chabana.

Below a picture of a beautiful painting that shows just this lesson. 

Drinking koicha to wait for robiraki (English text)

November is a very intriguing month. 

I deeply love the Fall: nature becomes more intense and tinged with warm and cool colors that invite to close in tea room where the barely audible crackle of burning coals welcome as an irresistible call. 

At this time, over a cup of koicha, is easier to meditate on life, nature and the lessons that only the Way of Tea manages to impart. 

Whit my koicha, today, I began to think about what is the focal point of November for every follower of Chado: robiraki. 

Robiraki is the opening of ro (winter brazier) which coincides with the month of November and with the opening of chatsubo for the first tea of the season. 

The opening of ro and chatsubo should be made, according to tradition, 88 days after it's closure. 

Robiraki takes so much work, but the "installation" of the first coal it is also a great satisfaction and marks the beginning of the winter season and the friendly brazier located in the middle of the room. 

Above and below there are some techniques photos of how to drink koicha and to clean  the cup after drinking. 

Haigata without charcoals! (English text)

The word "haigata" in Japanese means the arrangement of ash (specific ash for the use in tea ceremony) inside the brazier, both summer and winter.

The ash is very important because it serves as the basis of the above charcoals and also has a nice aesthetic effect.

Put the ash is a complex art in the ceremony since each type of grate has a different form of ash.

The ash is first basted and then, once given a summary form, it is "smoothed" with appropriate tools. 

Usually with electric coals you can not use the ash and that is a shame because you lose a lot of aesthetic of the brazier.

However doing a lesson, to save money and time, we use the fake coals to have the appearance of true of true coals and light up just as the red - hot - coals but they are made of synthetic materials and emit light and heat due to electricity.

I recently discovered a system in order to use the ash with synthetic charcoals could also make a "partial" haigata. 

There are the "plates of fake coals" electrical which can be inserted in a protective disk enable you to put the ashes in the edge you can put it appropriately smoothing (not, unfortunately, be able to get all the traditional forms required by the various types of braziers).

I haven't yet a maekegawara (half moon ceramics that plugs into the ash in front of the embers) suitable for furo cast iron (should be orange ) so I had to adapt with my white one.
Here in these photos there are some examples of what as been the end result that has me very satisfied. 

What is a tea ceremony?

Some people ask me what really is a tea ceremony. It’s quite difficult to explain. Tea ceremony in the West means the way of serving tea in the East, which varies from Country to Country. This way, depending on the place, can be extremely ritualized and very complex. Sometimes the art of serving tea includes artistic knowledge in various fields of cultural arts of the Country of which we are practicing ceremonial. Some types of ceremonies are rather informal so that in the same Country of origin are not defined ceremonies, but are seen as the correct way of serving tea. One example is China, where the tea ceremony is called gongfucha which literally means "tea in the best way." The gongfucha is so informal, not only depending on the areas where it is operating, but also by the same people who practice it and has very few fixed rules.

A special case is made from Korea and especially Japan. In Korea, the tea ceremony is divided in ceremony for the leaf tea ceremony and tea powder. Both ceremonies are quite similar to its Japanese, but retain more lightness and a more informal tone that have certainly adopted by the Chinese style. The darye Korean, albeit very ritualized, has much less stiffness than the Chanoyu.

In Japan, the tea ceremony is divided in ceremony for Sencha (leaf tea) called Senchado and ceremony for tea matcha (powder tea) called Chanoyu. The Chanoyu ceremony is the most complex and ritualized existing and is the sum of the Japanese arts. Consequently in Japan (but not only there ) it is held in high esteem. Chanoyu means "hot water for tea" and this is a maximum of the master considered the founder of the ceremony itself, which has marked the ritual as it stands today, and called Sen No Rikyu. A run schools of tea ceremony in Japan today are the descendants of the Master. The Chanoyu is often called by the name of Chado which literally means "Way of Tea". "Way" in Japanese is the path of the life of a 'whole life that the follower learns this art, perfect, practical and, later, teaches and serves to guide the choices and building throughout its life. It 'very difficult to explain in words what is the sum of the arts, gestures and rituals contained in a tea ceremony: it is much better, initially, to learn it by practice: before watching the demonstrations and, later, trying lessons.

If you’re interested in to try our tea ceremony lessons please write to: letiziadelmagro@gmail.com

Still a long absence but this time we write on the blog more motivated than ever!

I didn't want, but I find myself once again to apologize for the long absence from the blog. So many things have happened to me: I took a degree, I adopted an extraordinary puppy dog and I lived many adventures. And I went through all this to get back to writing in the blog even more motivated than before because every experience I do brings me back to which is and will always be my greatest passion: the tea ceremony!

Now, fortunately, I have a lot of free time and I decided to use him to dedicate every day to a different tea ceremony.
Of course chanoyu will have several days dedicated, otherwise it would be impossible to resist!

On Friday it's the round of the Japanese tea ceremony and today I did practice for the first time, & nbsp; with a typical summer temae inaugurating my new tana (a special tea ceremony forniture) with the appropriate space for the use of hira kensui (a kensui - container of dirty water - flat and wide).
I also inaugurated the new location for the summer tea ceremonies: a wonderful roof terrace with panoramic views on all sides. Later also I put the photo of the location that is truly stunning.

Mitsusashi is an adaptation of an Italian vessel similar to analogues used in the Japanese tea ceremony.

This type of temae provides koicha run to usucha without the usual pause that normally divides them.
On this occasion I used a natsume (tea container) in black lacquer with bamboo design and dew drops.
Chawan (the bowl where you can drink tea) is one of my favorite summer cups, while futaoki (ladle rests) is part of the collection of futaoki loved by Sen no Rikyu .
The photo below shows the arrangement of the tools at the end of the ceremony: you must mentally divide the upper part of the shelf top in three parts and bottom in four and place hishaku (ladle for water) so that it has the mouth on the intersection between the first and second upper space and the lower end of the handle in the intersection between the third and fourth.
The last photo shows the disposal instead (guest side) of the main four tools that are viewed during Haiken.
I leave you in company of the photos and ... good matcha at all!

Pink Chaxi

It will be that this spring continues to be gray and rainy, it will be that my mood is combined with the time or it will be that I wanted to inaugurate a  Japanese Tengui that was given to me some time ago, the fact is that I organized the Chaxi for the lesson in a somewhat 'unusual pairing with a very romantic pink and white dressing.

A tengui is a simple piece of cotton cloth painted with Japanese traditional designs that can be used in various ways: as dry cloth,  as placemat, as a curtain ...

And it's necessary to pay attention to washing a tengui because the colors are not fixed with industrial techniques and may fade or bleed.

The design of this tengui is a classic spring: flowers of sakura (cherry flowers) and bunnies (which are considered good luck in Japan).

The tools used take up the theme of cherry blossoms in the cups and in the pitcher and they are all fine Chinese porcelain except  saucer dessert that is a gift from Japan.

For tea it seemed appropriate to use a "White Snow Buds," a good quality white tea buds,  full of great taste,  delicate, sweet and fruity soon.

For  sweet I paired a little meringue decorated with pink sugar sprinkles.

Tea in the greenhouse

At the end of March I wanted a gong fu cha in a place that suggested a greater idea of ​​spring so I thinked :" Why not in my greenhouse?".
Yes, in a greenhoude it's more difficoult to find a correct place to arrange an hanging scroll but I wanted to try...
This is the result...

For the chaxi I chose a tea set in a dark blu color with gold ornamental motifs called "Black Pearl" and the tea was a classic Bi Lo Chun (tea that most suggests the idea of the spring).
The cups were a little more big than normal so the technique was centered in the correct moviment to empty water from buckets without no tool.

And finally a traditional spring Japanese sweet: sakura mochi ( Kyoto version)!

The Beauty - (chanoyu of middle March)

The last lesson of Chanoyu had a theme (effettively the same theme used for the lessons of gong fu cha) very challenging: the beauty.
The shikishi used in the previous week was based on the purity of the heart and the argument that
we had treated was the renewal that spring inevitably brings with.
With this lesson I wanted to introduce the theme of Beauty as a whole between inner and
exterior: there is no exterior beauty if also there isn't an inner beauty and does not exist
a nice container for the tea without ... someone who knows how to handle and use it with care!
The correlation between nature, pure soul, beauty tools and technique of use is very narrow:
there isn't a well done tea ceremony without these four elements.
What good is having a rare cup made by a great Master if you do not have the perfect technique
to use it? And what good is a perfect technique if you do not use a good tea, freshly and ground
with care? And finally, what good is having a wonderful tea if we are not able to transfer
our love in the infusion that we are preparing?